Aratoro
by threemine2013
Summary: A month after she loses her powers, Charlotte heads to the moon pool in a desperate effort to get them back. To everyone's surprise, including her own, she succeeds. But life can throw many curves at people, and the one Charlotte gets may just be the one she needs to embark on a path of discovery... and learn from it. Part of my 'Shifting Tides' universe.
1. Super-Mermaid Returns

**So, here am I with a new fanfic, which is my first foray into the H2O - Just Add Water series (unless you count my Mako Mermaids - An H2O Adventure fic, given that, since the third season premiered, Mako Mermaids counts even more as part of the H2O universe because of the H2O character featured in it).**

 **As I hope the summary left clear, this story is about Charlotte and my vision of what she may have been up to since the last time we saw her in the series proper. I know, I know, she's a villain, but in fairness to her, I believe that it is possible she could change her ways.**

 **On a different vein, this story is also set in the same universe as my Mako Mermaids fic, 'Seas Of Change', an universe that I titled 'Shifting Tides'. I made it a part of the same universe because that's how I conceived it at first, and also because I had enough issues with the third season (fourth on Netflix) of Mako Mermaids to not be willing to change it. Please note that I mean no disrespect to those who liked the season - I'm just saying I didn't like it some parts of it myself.**

 **Now that all is said and done, let's begin.**

* * *

 **Chapter 1 – "Super-Mermaid" Returns**

It looked exactly the same as it did the first time she saw it under the same conditions.

It was a circular pool of seawater, connected to the sea outside by an underwater tunnel and to the island above by a passage one could easily get hurt sliding through, with a circular volcano's crater showing the starry sky several metres above, and a source of light that those who were particularly sharp or dwelt on it long would say it was not natural. With everything she knew about the place, she would have no problem agreeing with such a statement.

Still, the place was mostly unremarkable in appearance. And yet, it had enough power to make those who fell into it at the right time experience untold magic. She, Charlotte Watsford, knew it well enough, because, for all of a lunar month, she had also enjoyed the kind of magic this place had to give.

Charlotte smiled as she thought of those days. It had been the best time of her life. She had been able to swim faster than any fish, hold her breath for an eternity from a human point of view, and do magic of a kind she had never dreamed could exist before. This place had helped her to, for the first time in her life, truly feel – and be – special.

But then, almost a month ago, those three blasted girls, who had no right to the magic they possessed to begin with, had taken hers away.

Charlotte clenched her fist, her face disfigured into a snarl at the memory of them holding her over the moon pool like a piece of meat over a shark's mouth. She didn't know which one of them she hated the most. Rikki with her dry remarks that reminded Charlotte of everyone who had ever called her fat, Emma with her attempts at making peace that only conveyed how much she wanted Charlotte to be gone, or Cleo with her sneaky attempts to ruin things between her and Lewis at a time when she had been insisting that she and Lewis were done. Cleo probably took the cake, if only by how she had ended up taking Lewis back even though she had treated him like crap just because he dared to like any girl other than her, but thinking of any of them made Charlotte's blood boil, and thinking of all three of them at the same time made it boil three times as much.

 _Fools!_ Charlotte thought, her blood boiling at the recollection of that moment. _Blasted fools!_

And she wasn't even thinking that only out of spite. Cleo, Rikki, and Emma truly had been fools. After all, they had to live their lives extremely carefully because of their magic, as Charlotte knew from personal experience. A drop of water on their skins at the wrong place at the wrong time could ruin their lives forever. And yet, by taking Charlotte's powers, they had handed her the chance to snitch on them and not suffer any consequences for it on a silver platter. They only thought she wouldn't do so because of the promise she had made to Lewis.

Charlotte couldn't help a smile at the thought of him. Lewis was so adorably naïve. For all his insistence that he had liked Cleo more than her and the firmness with which he'd told her to return her grandmother's locket so he could give it back to Cleo, he had only asked her once whether she would keep the girls' secret, and had accepted her reassurances that she wouldn't do so without blinking. He had even wished her luck before going away.

To her own surprise, Charlotte hadn't been lying when said she would keep the secret. Even now, for how much she was boiling with anger at the mermaids, she had been unable to seriously entertain the idea of telling their secret to anyone. Whenever she did, her mind started coming up with awful scenarios of bloodied slabs of mermaid scales on laboratory tables or of the girls floating inside giant glass urns full of formaldehyde. She might hate them, but her hatred didn't go _that_ far.

Then again, maybe it was also the fact that Charlotte had a plan to recover what she lost, and part of her recognized that, her disgust at those thoughts aside, it would be dumb to put herself in peril without being absolutely sure that her attempt wouldn't work.

So she had played nice and waited for the right time, doing her best to either ignore the girls at school or to give them polite smiles when ignoring them was impossible. It had been gruelling; she had spent half the time looking at the watch and the other half looking at the calendar, her nerves building into a fever pitch. Add to that the difficulty of getting to go out on a school night and the nervousness at the fact of potentially being spotted by Lewis or the three mermaids, and Charlotte was ready to slam her head against the walls. But tonight, it would all come to an end. Tonight was a full moon, like on the night she had gained her powers. Maybe if she jumped into the moon pool once the water started bubbling and the sparkles started rising, she would recover her powers. If she recovered them, she could teach those three a lesson.

It would be a long shot, she knew. After all, the kind of full moon that had taken her powers was one meant to take them away forever. But for all she or anyone else knew, her grandmother Gracie, the only one known to have used that method to get rid of her powers, had never tried to recover them. Of course, she had no idea why her grandmother would give up something as awesome as this and never try to get it back, but her point still stood: it was possible that the 'forever' Max and Lewis had mentioned would only last until the next time she fell into this or any other moon pool while a full moon was passing overhead.

She wished she could know for sure, but she hadn't dared to talk to Max since the day Cleo had almost been eaten by sharks at Drayton's Reef. On the rare times she had as much as seen him since then, he had given her a very disapproving look that made her want to find a hole to hide in. Talking to Lewis was also out of the question, especially now that the three mermaids were again able to push Charlotte around. All she had to go on was her own guess and her hope that her theory was right.

So, repressing her urge to pace, she stood by the moon pool, her arms folded, and waited for the right time to jump in.

* * *

By the time it finally arrived, Charlotte had been going crazy. Her arms had been jammed under her armpits for who knew how long just so she wouldn't chew her nails off in nervousness, and in spite of her determination not to do so, she had ended up pacing so much that she was surprised she didn't end up knee-deep in volcanic rock.

But the moment the golden-green specks of light started to rise toward the volcano's crater, while the water underneath bubbled as if it was boiling, Charlotte couldn't help but stare at it, mesmerized. She had seen it before, but still, she couldn't help but contemplate it again. Perhaps this show always had that kind of effect on those that were (still) human.

 _Stop that!_ Charlotte told herself, shaking her head like a wet dog. _You're here to recover your powers, not to wax philosophy!_

Bolstered by the thought, she raced off to the pool's edge and dove in headfirst.

The feeling was exactly the same as that of two months ago. Although the water looked like it was boiling, it was at a perfect temperature for a person to be in, enveloping her like a warm bath. Her whole body tingled as what Charlotte now knew was magic flowed through it, and the blue beams shining down on her caught her eyes as if they were hypnotizing her, leaving only the vaguest awareness that something was happening to her.

The familiar force she had felt taking root in her body two months ago settled inside her just as it had done back then, rather than probing at her and retreating like she had been afraid it would. Charlotte smiled vaguely in the midst of her magic-induced trance. As far as she could tell, everything was going the way it should.

* * *

When the moon finally vanished from sight, Charlotte grinned toward the spot where it had been. To the best of her estimates, her plan had worked. She needed a good night's sleep to find out for sure, but as far as she could tell, within hours she would once more be the super-mermaid she'd always had the right to be.

* * *

Several hours later, Charlotte woke up to the incessant beeping of her alarm clock.

As on most mornings, she rose from the bed with a groan, her covers sliding off of her into the foot of the bed, her head heavy and her mind drowsy, today even more so than on most days because of the lack of sleep last night.

 _I guess this is why most parents don't like their kids going out at night on school days._

But it wasn't as if she'd had a choice. This full moon had been on a school day, and there was just no way she would wait any longer to see if it was possible to recover her powers or not.

 _My powers_! Charlotte thought as she jumped off the bed and bolted toward the bathroom. _I have to see if they came back!_

She shoved the bathroom's door open when she got there – and slammed it straight into her mother's nose. Her mother groaned and put her right hand to it, her left one clutching the towel she had wrapped around herself after her bath.

"Sorry, Mum!" Charlotte said. "Sorry! I didn't know you were there!"

Her mother whimpered for several seconds, the noise muffled by her hand over her nose. When she lowered it, Charlotte saw that her mother's nose was as red as a tomato.

 _At least it isn't bleeding._

But that thought didn't make her feel any less bad.

"What happened, Charlotte?" her mother asked. "Why the hurry?"

Charlotte tried to say something, but all she managed was a prolonged hum. After all, she couldn't exactly tell her mother that she was in a hurry to see if her mermaid powers had come back after all.

"I thought for a moment that I woke up later than I actually did," she said. "I guess I must still be half-asleep."

Although she took long enough to reply to leave doubts about her answer's plausibility, her mother chuckled fondly.

"See?" she lightly scolded as she jabbed a manicured finger toward Charlotte. "That's why I told you not to go out last night."

"I know it's not a good thing to do," Charlotte replied. "I just needed it last night."

She tried to speak in a light-hearted, airy tone, but her mother's assumed expression was immediately replaced by a concern frown all the same.

"Is there something you want to tell me?"

Charlotte tried not to look away.

"No," she replied, hoping she had managed to sound indifferent. "Nothing at all."

Her mother's concerned look did not fade in the least. "You know that if you're having problems, you can talk to me, whatever those problems are."

Charlotte reflexively started raising her hand to put it on her mother's arm, but changed her mind when her arm had barely twitched. If she had indeed gotten her powers back, she couldn't get wet now. If she put her hand on her mother's arm she'd be digging her own grave.

"Thanks, Mum. But really, I'm alright."

"Is it still because of Lewis?" Her mother insisted. As if she'd realized something, she added, "I know I'm not the best at giving relationship advice, but if you want to talk, I'm ready to listen."

Charlotte wished she could say it wasn't because of Lewis, but it wouldn't be a convincing lie. Not that she had any true hope of taking him back – Cleo had clearly corrupted him beyond hope with her mermaid wiles – but in a way, Lewis had been the one who made everything possible. Even if her plan had been unsuccessful, she wouldn't have become a mermaid to begin with without Lewis, even though he'd never actively helped and most of the time tried to work against it.

"I told you, mum, I'm fine," Charlotte insisted. "Really."

In spite of her reassuring tone, her mother's concerned face remained in place. However, she did not ask anything else, and, after a few seconds, her expression became more normal.

"I'll pretend I believe you until next Tuesday," she replied. "Now hurry up, or you'll be late for breakfast."

Charlotte nodded as she stepped aside to let her mother pass. Then she walked into the bathroom herself and locked the door, just to ensure her mother wouldn't barge in unexpectedly. Then she plugged the bathtub and put the water and the bath salts in.

This was it. In less than a minute, she would know whether her desperate plan had worked or not. She either had gone back to being a super-mermaid or she was doomed to remain the plain old Charlotte who was teased for her weight and who was only even remotely remarkable because she was good at drawing.

She reached out toward the bathtub, but then stopped. If her tail came back while she was standing up, she would fall over and end up getting hurt. She'd better actually get into the tub, and she'd better take off her pyjamas before she did so. In case her plan failed, the last thing she needed was to have to explain to her mother why she'd gotten into the bathtub fully dressed. Having to explain why she'd gone back to baths after her return to showers would be enough.

So that was what she did, trying to ignore the way her heart wanted to hammer out of her chest.

For ten whole seconds, she lay in the bathtub, staring at the foam on the surface, and with her hammering in her ears even more than it had during her wait last night.

Then, her whole body froze for an instant, and a familiar tingle went through it. When it ended, she felt and saw that all of her had changed. And the most obvious of those changes was the golden orange tail sticking out of the bathtub and wetting the floor.

Her eyes twice bigger than usual, Charlotte blinked repeatedly. Then, when the tail was still there, she raised her arms and whooped in joy.

 _It worked! IT WORKED! I'm a mermaid again!_ _Yes! Yes! Yes! Those three thought they could take it away, but now I'm going to show them!_

Her join then faded some, as something came to her mind. If the 'forever' Max and Lewis had mentioned really wasn't forever after all, then why had her grandmother never tried to recover her powers? What had been so bad about being a mermaid for her that she would just throw her tail away and never even try to get it back? Sure, having to avoid water all the time could be a bother, but other than that, everything about being a mermaid was awesome. Why did her grandmother think differently?

Charlotte cast the thought aside. Whatever her grandmother's reason, it was a secret she had taken to her grave. Her mother had never known about her grandmother's mermaid side, and again, Charlotte couldn't exactly ask Max. For better or for worse, she'd have to deal with never knowing.

It was better if she focused on the things she could know. And one of those was whether she had also recovered everything else that came with being a mermaid. Sure, she already knew she had gotten her tail back, but she still didn't know if she had gotten all of her powers back. For all she knew, she might not be able to freeze a single drop of water, or swim at a snail's place, or hold her breath for an even shorter period than she did as a human.

But she had her ways to figure it out most of those things right now. After all, she was surrounded by water.

Where would she start, though? With breath-holding, with temperature control, or with water manipulation?

Maybe the breath-holding. That had been the first thing she tried out with her previous transformation, and even with all her magic, it had still been the thing she loved the most – to swim underwater for an eternity amongst the corals and the sea animals.

Her mind made up, she slid forward in the tub so she would have room to lean backwards and then lay back on the bottom of the tub, her eyes closed because even mermaids didn't like bath salts foam in their eyes.

For a few seconds, fear threatened to overtake her, but then she relaxed and, in no time at all, realized that she had indeed gotten at least one thing back. As she did, she lay in the bottom of the tub, her eyes closed as she again pictured herself swimming in an endless ocean amongst fish rather than alone in a tile receptacle.

She came up long before she ran out of air, but still after having spent at least fifteen minutes underwater. She smiled as she pushed herself backwards to rest her back on the tub's surface, and then tried to levitate some water upwards.

The process went exactly as when she had tried it before she – now temporarily – lost her powers. A cube of water about the size of an apple slowly rose upwards, until it was about a metre and a half above her.

One more thing she had recovered.

Then she tried to make the cube of water she was levitating grow bigger, as slowly as possible so she wouldn't do anything that potentially alerted her mother. The cube of water grew and grew until she was holding at least twenty litres of water compressed into a large cube.

Her smile widened even more. She had recovered at least three powers. Now which one should she check? The freezing power, or the heating power?

Charlotte settled for the heating one. If she froze the water first and then tried to boil it, the cube would explode and almost certainly damage the bathroom, not to mention it could hurt her along the way. All things she wouldn't want to have to explain to her mother, not to mention to any hospital she would need to go to if she got seriously hurt. She might hate Cleo and her little mermaid friends, but she had realized they were right on one thing: if she got exposed as a mermaid, she'd be cut up and looked at under the microscope.

So, she started boiling the large cube of water she held up above her head. It evaporated away until it was about the size of a shoebox. Now it could be frozen – if she still had the power, of course.

Feeling as if she had ants crawling around the insides of her veins, Charlotte tried to freeze the cube of water. It lasted a bit longer than she was used to, probably because she'd never frozen water that she had previously heated, but after a few seconds, the cube of water was a giant ice cube. Now smiling so wide that her cheeks hurt, Charlotte applied a final touch, and the ice cube shattered into thousands of pieces that hailed down into her bathtub.

She kept smiling, feeling her determination to show those three little mermaids a thing or two become iron hard. Even if she hadn't recovered her super speed, which she had no way to know in the bathtub, she already had most of her powers back. Each of her usages of magic had been exactly as she remembered them from last time. Once Cleo and her little friends were hit by her powers again, they would regret ever having taken them away to begin with.

A quake on the bathroom door broke her from her thoughts. Charlotte shook in startle, some of the water spilling out of the bathtub. Then there was a series of knocks.

"Charlotte!" her mother called. "Did you not hear what I said? Your breakfast is already cold! Hurry up and get dressed or you'll be eating so late that you'll also be late for school!"

Right. She had to go to school. That wouldn't change just because she had gotten her tail back.

"Coming!" she replied to her mother.

If only she was a born mermaid! Mermaids didn't have to go to school for sure.

But they also wouldn't have a lot of things about land that she liked, like muffins or art or movies. For the most part, having been born and grown up as a human was not bad, even if losing her tail after gaining it had been awful.

It didn't really matter now. She had her tail back, and once school was out, she could see whether the one thing she still hadn't checked – her super-speed – also had returned.

And then, those three idiots would do well to watch their backs.

* * *

School crawled by slowly enough to make a slug look like a Formula One car. Charlotte spent all of with her mind lost in her eagerness to find out whether she had also recovered her super speed and in all sorts of imagination exercises about what she would do to Cleo and her friends.

To her own surprise, she had problems coming up with anything concrete. While she had spent a month vowing to get her revenge if she managed to recover her powers, now that she actually had gotten them, she seemed unable to develop anything concrete.

On the other hand, she certainly was able to call the attention of every teacher at the day's classes, given how she lost count of the number of times she was told to pay more attention in class. It got her into a particularly big spot of trouble when she managed to end up with twice as much maths homework as anyone else in her class.

Her mother wouldn't be happy about that when she found out.

But she could live with it. She had her tail back. A bit of extra maths was nothing, even if it was her least favourite subject.

And like the month she spent waiting for the next full moon, her school day also came to an end. As soon as it ended, she went back home to put her bags away, and then she hit the water to check the last thing she had been unable to at home.

* * *

Like with all the things she had managed to check in her bathtub, the one she had to confirm at the open sea had returned. Every bit of Charlotte's super speed had come back, and she made full use of it.

If she had to guess, she made it to Mako Island in record time, and managed to swim laps around the island far faster than she had done before. Some of it might be her mind playing tricks on her after she had spent a while without having super speed, but her mind wasn't so deceived as to put all of the super-speed there. Like all of her other mermaid talents, it had returned, and if she kept at it, she probably would be able to become even faster.

Once she finished her laps around Mako Island, she started a slow swim through the reef, an awed look on her face.

Everything was as mesmerizing as she remembered. The sunrays dancing through the water, the vibrant corals that blazed around her, the schools of fish swimming majestically… it would make for the best painting ever, if there was an artist who could truly capture it. Charlotte considered herself decent enough, but there was no way she could capture a hundredth of this beauty.

There was no need anyway. Now that she had her tail back, she could come here every day if she wanted to.

Happier than she had been since the day of her first transformation, she kept her swim through the reef, occasionally doing so beside the creatures around her. Among others, she rubbed her hands along the shell of a green turtle that moved placidly through the water, poked her finger at regal tangs that looked much surlier than Dory from the _Finding Nemo_ movie would suggest for their species, and swam underneath schools of grey reef sharks that she could swear were giving her the side eye. The only animal she had to stay away from was a blasted dolphin that approached her for a few attempts at biting her before she drove it away with a barrier of bubbles. An edge of guilt prickled at her when the animal swam away in a clearly panicked state, but for the most part she was glad to see it go. It reminded her far too much of the one Cleo looked after. Cursed things. Maybe some thought that mermaids were meant to be friends with them, but just the idea of being in the water with one made her twitchy. Something about their hyperactivity and invasiveness put her on edge, and that other dolphin's attack on her had only made it worse. Sure, Cleo had said he liked her, but as far as Charlotte was concerned, that must have meant he liked her taste and wanted a mouthful or several.

Fortunately, the dolphin was the only unpleasant part of Charlotte's swim. When it came to everything else, she felt as if she was swimming in paradise.

The feeling lasted for all of an hour, until she met a sight that made her slide to a halt.

* * *

Less than five meters away from her, with only a dull red coral outcrop between them, Cleo, Rikki, and Emma floated in the water, looking at her with such gobsmacked faces that one would think they had seen a white shark with its face made up like a clown's and its body stuffed into a tutu.

Charlotte smirked, not even caring about repressing it. She had thought Cleo's face when she saw her after her first transformation was hilarious, but it didn't hold a candle to seeing the faces of all three of them with eyes the size of tennis balls after she had recovered her tail.

If there was anything that could make her day better, this was it.

Eventually, one of them did manage to recover. Her gaze as burning as her powers would suggest it was, Rikki pointed rigidly at her, and then at the water's surface. The meaning was clear: they needed to talk.

Charlotte made it a point to shrug indifferently. She wasn't worried about anything these three might have to tell her. Still, she might hear what they had to say. It wasn't as if they could do anything about her tail now.

So she swam toward the surface, the other three mermaids following her. Their heads broke through the water at approximately the same time. Charlotte kept her smirk in place; the other three now looked more normal, but kept silent.

After a while, one of them at last managed to speak.

"Had a relapse, did you?" Rikki asked, somehow managing to make her question sound biting in spite of its tone.

Charlotte's smirk widened. "It wasn't a relapse. I just went and took my tail back."

Rikki rolled her eyes and let out a loud groan. Emma uttered a rare curse; which one exactly, Charlotte couldn't understand through her clenched teeth. Cleo simply looked on in horror.

"How?" Emma asked, her eyes so narrowed they were mere slits. "Did you just go into the moon pool and dive in while the full moon was passing overhead?"

Her smirk still in place, Charlotte deadpanned, "Brilliant, Holmes."

"But you were meant to have lost your powers forever!" Cleo shouted.

"I guess that the 'forever' meant only 'until I got back into the moon pool at the right time'."

To prove her point, Charlotte raised both her hands above the water, levitating two basketball sized spheres of water as she did so. Keeping herself on the same position only with impulses from her tail, she first froze the water sphere over her right hand, causing it to shatter into tiny grains that rained down on the sea. Then, she boiled the one above her left hand until it was a mere cloud of steam that the wind dispelled in less than a second.

"See?" Charlotte chirped as she lowered her hands.

She doubted any of the girls would look more horrified if she told them she had missiles aimed toward their homes and had just fired them. Served them right. They should be afraid. Because as soon as she figured out how to get her revenge, it wouldn't go easy for them.

Again, Rikki was the first to recover her speech.

"It doesn't change anything. You're still on your own."

For the first time since she'd surfaced, Charlotte's smirk vanished, replaced by a glare.

"Believe me, after what you did to me, I wouldn't want to be a part of your little club," she growled.

Looks of utter disbelief appeared on the other mermaids' faces.

"What we did to you?" Emma echoed. "You mean what you did to us!"

"You started it," Charlotte ground out. "I can list quite a few occasions when you were needlessly petty to me before I did anything wrong to you."

Rikki, wonder of wonders, actually surged forward and seized her by the shoulders.

"And that makes what you did to us alright?" Rikki shouted in her face. "Because of you, Cleo almost ended up as chum for the sharks on Drayton's Reef!"

Charlotte winced. It took every bit of effort on her part not to actually look down. That had to be the one thing she had ended up doing that she wasn't proud of to any level. Oh, she hadn't regretted putting Cleo in her place, or taking the locket that was rightfully hers, but knowing she had almost died… even then, it made the bottom of her stomach churn.

Rikki looked like she wanted to push her under, but then Emma and Cleo pulled her back by her tail, their gazes as wary as an ordinary diver's were when looking at a shark.

"Well, don't look at me as if I told her to go there in the first place," Charlotte replied, her chin tilted up.

Rikki again surged forward in an effort to tackle her, but this time Emma held her back.

"And when you locked us up in the pool room stuck in our tails?" Cleo countered, her own eyes now also narrowed and her voice quiet with anger. "Do you have any justification for your innocence on that as well, or are you ready to call it the abhorrent act of evil it truly was?"

Charlotte again tried not to look down. That one had just been a huge stupid moment of her own. Like she had realized, if Cleo and Emma had been exposed as mermaids, whatever happened to them would have happened to her. She would have ended up like the girls did in those visions of her – processed for analysis or stuck in a giant jar to be gawked at.

In an effort to mask her thoughts, she smiled with fake sweetness.

"It's so much easier for you to paint someone else as the villain, isn't it?" she asked in a deliberate sickly sweet voice.

Well, those three were the villains as far as Charlotte was concerned. And sooner or later, they would be punished, like villains ought to be.

"Villain or not, you'd do well to remember one thing," Rikki warned, again with a burning glare on her face. "We beat you once, we can do it again."

Charlotte's eyes narrowed.

"And you remember this: I learn from my mistakes. I won't be dumb enough to try the same trick twice."

This time, they said nothing in response. Good, because Charlotte was done talking to them.

"Until next time," she said.

Before either of them could reply, she dove, turned around, and super sped away from the other mermaids while she resumed her efforts to come up with the most elaborate and painful plan for revenge she could.

* * *

 **So... the first chapter comes to an end. I hope that you enjoyed it. I apologize if it was a bit slow at times, but it was kind of needed given the nature of the plot. Conversely, I am also aware it may have been a bit fast in that Charlotte recovered her tail from the get-go, but her not recovering her tail was never meant to be an issue.**

 **I know that the way for her recovery of her tail was a bit cheap and non-dramatic, but to the best of memory, we never learned whether the 'forever' that Max meant was really forever or whether it would only last until the one losing the powers fell into another or even into the same moon pool.**

 **I also know that I am still portraying Charlotte as villainous, however, please remember we're only one chapter into the story. To those of you who want her to change, please stick around for a bit longer. For those of you who prefer her as a villain, I'm sorry, but I reiterate this is not one of those stories.**

 **Also, for those of you who also like Mako Mermaids, I invite you to take a look at my 'Seas Of Change' story.**

 **Until next chapter.**


	2. A Bird's Crime

**So, here is the second chapter of Aratoro. I know updates to it have not been as frequent as those to Seas Of Change, but rest assured, I plan to continue this story.**

 **A brief warning before the chapter starts; this is my first try at writing any of the main H2O girls or guys, so I apologize in advance if they come across as OOC.**

 **With that out of the way, let us begin.**

* * *

 **Chapter 2 – A Bird's Crime**

The first thing Cleo, Rikki, and Emma did once Charlotte was well out of sight was to swim toward land themselves, get dry, and call their boyfriends for a conversation about what to do to deal with their new very big problem. As Ash, Lewis, and Zane all turned out to be free, the six of them agreed to meet at Emma's home, the only one that was both vacated for the afternoon and big enough for all of them to be at comfortably.

Once there, they filled the boys in on their new problem as quickly as they could, a task that could have taken five minutes if they were calm, but which they managed to stretch into ten due to their sheer nervousness. By the end of it, Lewis looked like he had to use all of his self-control not to gape, Zane had his eyebrows set into a straight line, and Ash's brow was furrowed in suspicion.

Lewis was the first to recover his voice.

"So let me see if I get this straight. Last night, Charlotte went to the moon pool, recovered her tail as if it was nothing, and now looks like she's set on getting her revenge?"

"Exactly that," Emma confirmed.

"But how is this even possible?" Lewis insisted. "That full moon was meant to have permanently removed the powers of any mermaid who fell into the moon pool!"

"You're asking us?" Cleo remarked. "You're the one who warned us about it to begin with!"

Lewis blinked in confusion a few times. "Well, I told you exactly what Max told me, and he told me that the full moon Charlotte went through is meant to take away a mermaid's powers forever." He shrugged. "I guess Max mustn't have had enough case studies to actually be sure of such a fact. Or maybe Gracie lied to him about that. I'd have to ask him to know for sure."

"We'd better find out how we're going to deal with Charlotte first," Rikki pointed out. "And preferably soon. Fifty years looking over our shoulders for Charlotte is too long."

A collective chill went through the room, as if the air conditioning's temperature had dropped several dozen degrees. None of them relished the idea of spending fifty years dealing with a dangerous and potentially unstable mermaid.

"Maybe you don't have to," Zane pointed out. "Miss Chatham wasn't a mermaid either by the time we met her, was she? Perhaps there's more than one way to take a mermaid's tail away."

"If there is, let's hope she told Max about it," Rikki said grimly.

Fleeting looks of sadness, more pronounced on Cleo and Emma, went through the group as they recalled Louise Chatham. Only two weeks after the lunar eclipse that had enabled them to trick Doctor Denman into thinking they had lost their powers, Emma's mother had gotten a call from the retirement home Miss Chatham was living at, stating that she had died in her sleep. Losing her had been difficult, first and foremost because they all liked her, but also on a smaller – if still important – level, because it meant they would be unable to ask her for any more help regarding mermaid issues.

After a few seconds, Cleo's eyes lit up and she turned to Ash, the only one who hadn't yet spoken since the reveal.

"Your grandmother never told you anything about how she lost her tail, did she?" Cleo inquired.

Ash chuckled at the question.

"I didn't even know she had been a mermaid until I made the connection between the stories she used to tell me and what Emma told me regarding her transformation," he pointed out. "So no, she never told me about how she lost her tail."

Downcast looks made their way onto the others' faces.

"It seemed like a good idea," Cleo tried to justify. "Given that you told us she wasn't a mermaid either by the time you met her, she had to have lost her tail as well."

"I know what you mean," Ash reassured. "But all the stories Grandma Julia told me were about the way to gain mermaid powers, not about how to lose them. And as far as I know, she didn't keep a diary or a journal either, so we don't have a place where we can look for the answer."

"We'll really have to ask Max then," Emma stated. "And come up with a good plan in the meantime, because Charlotte won't let her tail go willingly."

Nods from the other girls and Zane met her statement. Lewis, however, still looked a tad uncertain, and Ash's forehead was creased as if he was thinking about something.

"If I may ask, wouldn't it be better to actually let her keep her tail?" Ash suggested.

A sea of puzzled looks met his statement.

"You've been hanging around too much horse poop, college boy," Zane stated. "And the smell did something to your brain from the looks of it."

Ash threw an annoyed look at Zane and then addressed the girls. "What I meant is, when she didn't have her tail, you were always going on about how she might snitch on you at any moment. Now that she has her tail back she definitely can't snitch, if only for her own sake."

For the briefest of moments, all the girls seemed ready to argue, but no actual words came from them. Then, Emma nodded in agreement, while a downcast Cleo lowered her eyes, and Rikki scowled.

"Good point," Zane acknowledged on behalf of the girls, the sentence coming out like a tooth being pulled without anaesthesia.

"She may not be able to snitch, but she can certainly do a lot of worse things," Rikki replied. "And we ought to do something about her before she does them."

"We could just sit down together and talk," Lewis remarked. The remark earned him puzzled looks that made the ones Ash had gotten look like flickers of surprise in comparison, but he went on undeterred, "Charlotte may have her faults, but she's not completely off her rocker. If we apologized to her, maybe we could calm her down enough to sway her away from any revenge ideas."

An outraged look burst on Rikki's face.

"I'm not apologizing to that witch after what she did to Emma or Cleo!" she shouted with such force that Lewis leaned away and raised his hands. "She's the one that needs to apologize!"

After a few seconds of silence, during which Lewis looked Rikki over as if to make sure she was done, he replied, "We're no saints either, and we've made our own mistakes, me in particular. When I splashed her with that glass of water after the camping trip to Mako Island, that could have been a disaster for everyone, as you pointed out during the hour-long scolding you gave me afterwards."

A shiver came over Lewis when he finished his sentence, but although the girls gave him annoyed looks at what he brought up, none of them gave him another scolding for his deed.

"Two wrongs don't make a right," Cleo pointed out.

"Maybe not, but we still should own up to our own wrongs and try to atone for them," Lewis insisted.

A long silence came over the wrong, as if Lewis' statement required too much physical effort for them to take in for anyone to say anything to it. At last, Cleo broke the silence.

"Fair enough. But I'm not talking to her."

"Well I'm not either!" Rikki immediately added.

The other members of the group exchanged glances.

"Who's doing it then?" Emma asked.

Instead of five of the members of the group training their gaze on someone, the exchange of glances continued, only now involving them all. For several times, one of them was looked at by more than one other person of the group, but none of the universal silent agreements that seemed to take place all so often in fiction took place.

After a few minutes with everyone glancing around, Zane broke the silence.

"Let's think about that tomorrow. I don't think we'll be going anywhere with this today."

Lewis rolled his eyes in what seemed like both amusement and amazement.

"I never thought I'd say this, but I kind of agree with Zane. The news is too fresh yet, and last time we all did a lot of stuff without thinking when it came to Charlotte. If we think before acting this time, we should be able to avoid the same mistakes."

Ash nodded in agreement.

Neither Emma, Cleo, nor Rikki seemed particularly thrilled about the compromise, but none of them brought forth any suggestion. After some time, each of them expressed their agreement with Zane's and Lewis' ideas.

In the end, they decided that they would all try to think about a way to solve the problem on their own, and the following day, at lunch, they would meet to come to a common solution.

* * *

Although Charlotte was undeniably happy about not only having gotten her tail back, but having also given Cleo and her moronic friends a taste of what they would be up against, she knew that her becoming a mermaid for the second time ended all her problems. Her homework hung over her like a pile of phone books ready to be dropped, with maths making up the heaviest volume, and Charlotte knew she had no choice other than to finish it before the next lesson if she did not want both her math teacher and her mother to be on her case.

So, the moment she returned home, she threw herself into all the homework she was given, and did it to the best of her ability. To her relief, most of it was easy to deal with, and although maths was a pain because of both her dislike for the subject and of the amount she got in comparison to everyone else, she still managed to finish it, and as far as she could tell she got most of it right. The final word wouldn't be hers, but with the main part out of the way, she wouldn't care about that for the time being either. She had more important things to think about.

Namely, how to make Cleo and her little clique pay for what they had done to her.

So, as soon as her homework was done, she sat on a deckchair by the pool, twirling a pencil in her right hand and with a notebook open in her lap, trying to come up with something suitable for those three to endure.

Taking their tails away was the first idea she wrote down, but she crossed it out the following second. Not only would she have to wait fifty years to do that, but if those three lost their tails, they would be the ones not having any problem snitching on her about her tail.

Luring their boyfriends to her, like she had heard Cleo could do because of the full moon, also came to her mind, but it didn't take more than a few seconds for her to discard that one either. She'd have to wait until the right full moon arrived, and not only she wouldn't remember anything she did during that time, but she had no trusted friend who knew her mermaid secret to watch over her and cover for her in case she did something stupid. Also, any kind of permanent lure would have Lewis, Ash, and Zane following her around like lost puppies until the end of their days, and it could get her in trouble.

Besides, it wouldn't be real. They wouldn't come to her because they liked her. No boy did, except for Lewis, and even he had liked Cleo more. Most of them found her too fat to be beautiful, and most of the remaining ones were too intimidated by her height. Charlotte could do nothing about her height, and all her attempts to do anything about her weight had fallen through; besides being large boned, she liked eating a bit more than society tended to perceive as 'correct' for girls.

Either way, that plan wasn't good either, and for too many reasons. She'd have to think about something else.

Maybe she could pour some ambergris on Nate then. After she got her tail, one of the things Lewis had warned her about was what ambergris could do, and Charlotte had made the connection about the girls being so attracted to Nate on that day. If she poured ambergris on him, they'd all be drawn to that imbecile like moths to a flame, and it would be the biggest shame of their lives. They'd never live down being attracted to that idiot for a second time, no matter what substances were involved.

 _No._ Charlotte thought. _I may end up catching a whiff myself, and there's no way I'm coming within ten feet of that moron!_

Besides, it was too dangerous. The girls had no awareness of what they were doing while under the ambergris' power, and the risk of them getting wet was too big. She couldn't dig her own grave with her revenge plan.

 _Blast it!_ Charlotte thought, clenching her hand so tightly that her already pale knuckles whitened further around the pencil. _Why is it that I can't have a single idea that doesn't sound so risky?_

Maybe it was a sign from the universe. Maybe it was telling her that no matter what she did, there was no plan for revenge that wouldn't be too dangerous for her, so she'd better give it up.

No. She refused to believe it. She wouldn't let those three get away with everything they did to her. She might have gotten her tail back, but she never should have lost it in the first place. And she was sick of being pushed around and made for a joke. Those three would be the last people doing anything of the sort to her.

Besides, she had been at it for less than half an hour. She couldn't just give up on it just because an idea didn't present itself to her from the get-go. And she had time. She could keep thinking until she came up with the perfect idea.

And when she had come up with the perfect idea, those three wouldn't know what had hit them.

* * *

"Charlotte?"

She shook in startle as the sound broke through her focus, and looked up at the one who had addressed her.

"Mum!" she greeted. "You're home!"

She closed the notebook – which now had the first four pages full of crossed out ideas – and set it beside her to stand up. But as she did, a sliver of wariness started to spread through her as she looked properly at her mother.

At a first glance, she seemed just the same, but a careful look revealed she wasn't alright. Charlotte couldn't exactly specify why, but somehow, the stiff manner in which she stood seemed too rigid, too unnatural, as if she was constantly making an effort not to fall apart. The way her throat pulsed, as if something was trying to find its way out and at the same time very reluctant to leave, added to the impression. And her hands, which were clenched into fists to the point Charlotte almost expected to see blood trickling through her fingers, completed the set.

"What happened?" Charlotte asked. "Is everything alright?"

Her mother took a deep breath, and then went and positioned another deckchair so that it was right beside the one Charlotte had been sitting on.

"Sit down, Charlotte," her mother said as she sat down herself on the deckchair she had just moved. "We need to talk."

After a moment's pause, Charlotte replied, "Sure."

But as she sat down, Charlotte couldn't help but give her mother a puzzled look. What could they have to talk about? Had her mother somehow gotten warnings from the school already for her behaviour today?

No, that didn't seem likely. She was, modesty aside, a decently-behaved student who paid moderate attention in class. Teachers wouldn't call her mother just because she had been unusually distracted for a day.

And besides, from the way her mother had talked, it seemed like she was going to say someone had died. She wouldn't be speaking in that tone because of school issues.

"So, what is it we need to talk about?"

Her mother's look became even more serious, and again, Charlotte thought it seemed almost like that someone might have when telling someone that a loved one had died. It must have been similar to the one she had on the day her grandmother Gracie had died, although Charlotte couldn't remember much about that day. Her heart suddenly leapt inside her chest. There was a person in their family for whom the possibility of meeting death on the daily job was higher than average. Could she have…

"Mum, is Aunt Nicole alright?" Charlotte asked, not bothering to mask the notes of fear in her voice.

To her relief, her mother cracked a reassuring smile.

"Yes, your aunt is alright, and so are your uncle and your cousins. This has nothing to do with anyone's death. It's serious, but not _that_ serious."

Charlotte sighed deeply, tension leaving her like air did an emptied balloon. If this wasn't about anyone's death, it couldn't be that bad.

"What is it then?"

Her mother wrung her palms repeatedly and looked in several directions away from Charlotte before replying.

"There's no easy way to put this. I wish I could somehow sugar coat the issue, but there's no way around it."

"Around what?" Charlotte pressed.

This time, her mother looked at her, but the way her hands were clasped together – tightly enough to make her knuckles white – conveyed her nervousness.

"I'm truly sorry it has to be this way, but unfortunately, it's out of my hands," she went on, looking down as she finished her sentence, as if it had taken considerable effort to look into Charlotte's eyes long enough to say those words.

"What is out of your hands?" Charlotte insisted.

Once more, her mother did not raise her head to look at her when she spoke.

"Maybe it won't be as bad as I'm afraid, but things are about to become very difficult at the very least."

"Mum!" Charlotte snapped. "Just what is it you're trying to tell me?"

Looking like she had aged five years in two minutes, her mother slowly raised her head. The gloomy look in her eyes immediately made Charlotte sorry for having snapped at her, but it also increased her fear.

Her mother took a deep breath, as if gathering all of her strength for the words she clearly wanted to say but couldn't find. Then, looking Charlotte in the eyes with such an intensity that her gaze seemed to want to puncture a solid brick wall, she spoke.

"We're flat broke."

Everything around Charlotte seemed to shut down. It was as if she was hanging in the middle of an emptiness, aware of what was going on around her but unable to truly experience it. All sounds around her vanished, the feeling of the chair underneath her disappeared… all she was aware of was her mother, sitting before her, looking more devastated than Charlotte remembered seeing her, her posture sagged as if she would crumble apart in seconds.

Charlotte blinked twice in an attempt to return to reality. Her senses other than sight seemed to return, but the enormity of the fact still lay in the vicinity, like a stone that had just been thrown at her head and landed close to her after making its hit.

"Broke?" Charlotte replied.

Her mother nodded.

"Broke, penniless, tapped out… we're all those and many more."

And the emptiness in her mother's voice conveyed more than anything else that it was the pure truth. Yet, it made no sense.

"How can that be?" Charlotte almost shouted. "Whenever I asked, you've always told me that your restaurant business was doing well! You even said you were thinking of expanding it!"

She stopped there, aware that her voice was taking an accusing tone. Whatever had happened to cause the restaurant to end up in such a state certainly wasn't her mother's fault, especially if it had happened so fast.

Still, she couldn't help the question that came next.

"Have you been lying to me?"

In spite of her attempts to keep her tone neutral, the nature of the question itself made it sound too accusing. Still, her mother did not seem affronted or sad at it.

"No, I haven't been lying to you. I have only trusted the wrong man for months."

At Charlotte's puzzled look, she explained, "The reason we're flat broke is because my secretary went and pilfered all the money in the restaurant's bank account."

Once more, Charlotte returned to the emptiness. Only this time, it seemed ten times emptier. She wasn't aware of anything but the utter shock that had metaphorically smacked her harder than any physical hit could. Her mother's words went through her head time and time again like a broken DVD player, unable to be turned off or muted. Her whole being quaked like those cartoon characters did when hitting a metallic surface, only she found no humour to it. She found nothing to her mother's words, other than an overwhelming sense of how it _just wasn't possible_!

"He did what?" Charlotte finally managed to ask.

"He cleaned the restaurant's bank account down to the last penny," her mother replied, still in the same defeated voice.

 _How can this be?_ Charlotte's mind seemed to shout over and over again. From what she knew, her mother's secretary – a thirty-something year old named Gratton Bird – seemed like a perfectly normal guy, always there on time, arriving early and leaving late quite frequently, who always kept everything as organized as a jigsaw puzzle that had just been set up, and never uttered a complaint.

 _Too good to be true, it seems._ Charlotte thought.

In fact, now that she dwelled on it, there had been a few moments where she had found Bird a bit shifty, thinking that his respect toward her mother and the fact he would work for a woman were a bit suspicious. Back then, she had brushed it off as mere lack of habit – after all, male secretaries were a thing from her grandmother's time at most – but it seemed there had been a bit more to it.

 _Why didn't you do more about it then?_ An inner voice, which sounded unpleasantly like a mix of all the girls who had ever teased Charlotte, asked. _Too self-absorbed to worry about your mother and the kind of staff she might keep?_

Charlotte clenched her fist in anger. Anger at what that voice shouted at her. Anger at herself for knowing there were grains of truth in it. Anger at Gratton Bird for playing them all like a fiddle and making off with all of their business' money.

"That bastard," Charlotte growled. "When I catch him I will…"

"You will do nothing," her mother interrupted, a hint of steeliness back in her voice.

Too angry to be happy about that, Charlotte insisted. "Oh yes, I will. Once I get my hands on that bastard, I..."

She trailed off there, unable to find anything bad enough to do to that guy. If she had him before her now, she would at best beat his face to a bloody pulp, and at worst toss him into the pool and use her heating powers on him until he was begging for mercy.

"Don't be silly, Charlotte," her mother chided. "He's probably thousands of miles away by now, and in the off chance he isn't, I don't want you anywhere near him. That man already proved he was smart, I don't want to take the chance he's also dangerous."

The notes of concern in her mother's voice brought Charlotte back to the ground, as her clenched fist loosened. Her mother already had enough on her plate without Charlotte needing to add anything else to the list. If she told her mother she would be alright, she would have to tell her why she was so sure of that, and revealing the mermaid secret was first on the things she had to avoid at all costs right now. Besides, being a mermaid didn't make her invulnerable. If a car crashed into her, she would get broken bones. If a bullet hit her, she would bleed. If she was pushed off a cliff, she would die.

And besides, her mother was right. If the guy had been smart enough to steal all that money, he probably would also be smart enough to make off with it without anyone catching him. He most likely already was in a non-extradition country, safe from anything the Australian government could do to him, and safe to either spend his stolen money until he needed to embezzle someone else or to invest it in some illegal activity that would ensure he wouldn't need to work ever again.

Once more, Charlotte clenched her fist, rage boiling inside her. Her mother's concern aside, if she ever got her hands on that guy, she would…

The widening of her mother's eyes again, joined by a cloud of steam and the bubbling of boiling water, snapped her chain of thoughts.

At once, Charlotte loosened her fist and looked left, right on time to see the last bubbles she had caused on the pool popping on its surface, while columns of steam rose from the water. Her eyes widened in fear. How was she going to explain this one?

"What's going on?" her mother asked, utterly baffled.

As quickly as she could, Charlotte composed an innocent look and shrugged as indifferently as possible.

"Some heating problem, I'd imagine."

Her mother frowned upon hearing the explanation, but before Charlotte could come up with an alternate theory, she replied. "Well, whoever comes here next can deal with it."

Whoever came here next? Were they leaving?

Charlotte felt like smacking herself for those thoughts. Of course they were leaving. With their current financial conditions, there was no way they would be able to stay in such a house.

"Good thing the house is rented!" Charlotte tried to quip.

Her mother cracked a smile, but it seemed automatic, as if she was going along with the joke only because she didn't want to actually cry.

"Where will we go next?" Charlotte asked in her best serious and at the same time calm tone; if humour wouldn't work, she figured the best thing she could do was try to take this situation like an adult.

It didn't work; although her mother tried to keep a straight posture, Charlotte could see in her eyes that she was doing everything not to fall apart.

"I don't know," her mother finally replied. "I've already sent as many applications as I could to every place that I thought might fit me remotely, and I'll keep sending them over the next days, but we'll have to wait and see who – if anyone – will reply back. I also talked to your aunt to see if she can find Bird and force him to return the money he stole, but I don't have a lot of faith she can do it. If he managed to steal so much money without us being any bit suspicious of him, he probably found a way to make off with all of it without being found."

Charlotte again clenched her fist, but this time, just as the first tiny bubbles started to pop on the water's surface, she remembered that she couldn't lose control. Her mother didn't need to deal with the mermaid secret now, and besides, the police would probably want to interrogate them both, whether here at the home or at some police station. In both cases, particularly the latter, she couldn't afford to have her powers affecting nearby water and tipping anyone off to oddities.

Thankfully, her mother didn't notice the water; she seemed too lost in her own thoughts.

"I'm sorry, Charlotte."

Charlotte reached over and held her mother's hand. "Don't be. It's not your fault."

Her mother raised her head for a thin smile, before dropping it again in sadness.

In an effort to distract her, Charlotte stood up.

"I'll get started on dinner," she offered as she started walking toward the house.

Her mother stood up as if energy had been injected into her by the words. "Let me help you."

Charlotte put on a mock-outraged look. "Hey, I know I never was a professional chef, but I'd still like to think my meals are edible."

This time, her mother chuckled genuinely. "I know. But I'd still like to help you. If nothing else, we can spend some time together. We haven't done it in so long."

 _True_ , Charlotte thought as she walked toward the pantry to check what they had for dinner, guilt stabbing at her. She knew she had been neglecting her mother, what with all her focus on Lewis, on her tail, and on her ideas of revenge.

And with that last thought, it was as if a camera's flash lit up her brain, while a fresh wave of rage tore through her. Curse Gratton Bird! Besides stealing her mother's money, he'd also stolen Charlotte's shot at revenge! No matter what happened now, she couldn't carry out any plans meant to punish those three girls. Her mother would be out of work for a period that could range from weeks to months, and they couldn't rely on their savings to get them through that time. Somehow, Charlotte would have to pitch in, starting as soon as possible. That left no room to come up with ways to make those conceited bitches pay.

Charlotte took a deep breath to calm down. Bird may have stolen her mother's money, but Charlotte herself could still carry out her revenge. She might have to put it aside for the time being, but but the moment she and her mother were in a stable situation again, she would return her focus to punishing the other three mermaids.

And in the meantime, she would come up with the nastiest, most fool proof plan she possibly could. That way, when she finally set it in action, there would be nothing those three could do to escape.

* * *

 **And so, here is a new chapter of Aratoro. I hope you have enjoyed it.**

 **To those who may already have the criticism in mind, I am aware I may have portrayed the girls as unduly aggressive. However, remember than in the previous chapter they not only discovered Charlotte had her tail back, but that she appears to be set on using it to do something nasty. That's bound to color their perceptions.**

 **And to any Nate fans, I apologize for Charlotte's thoughts on him. I was simply doing my best to reflect what I feel she would think about Nate (which, with all due respect, does not seem very difficult, given all the girls in H2O appear to have the same opinion on Nate).**

 **And once again, I reiterate that while Charlotte may still be having villainous tendencies, the story is still just beginning. For those who want to see her change, please stick around for a bit longer. For those who prefer her as a villain, I apologize, but I again say this isn't one of those stories.**

 **Until next chapter.**


	3. One's Misfortune Is Another's Fortune

**So... after months of waiting, I finally deliver the third chapter. I hope there are still some readers around to see it.**

 **I'm sorry I took so long to get it out, but my personal life has called on many fronts, and I have been grappling with my other story, Seas of Change, which also hasn't been updated in long, and will likely be completely retooled soon.**

 **But rest assured, Aratoro will be staying here, and I'll try my best to take less long between updates this time.**

* * *

 **Chapter 3 - One's Misfortune Is Another's Fortune**

Around lunchtime on the day after their 'swim-in' with Charlotte, Cleo, Emma and Rikki went to a park about two blocks from thei school, followed by Lewis and Zane. Although it was a school day, all those still in school had the same lunch period, and Ash happened to not have classes at that time, so he could also meet them.

He was already there, sitting on a garden bench, with a folded newspaper in his hands, a finger marking a specific page. He stood up when he saw the others, and as he walked toward them he could see noticeably serious looks on just about every face. Emma spared him a brief smile when she approached and they exchanged a kiss in greeting, but all the others remained somber, even as they exchanged greetings with him.

"Why the long faces, guys?" he asked them after a greeting of his own.

Rikki glanced at Emma to see if she would answer, while the others exchanged looks amongst themselves. Then, Zane replied, "We don't have good news."

"How come?"

There was another exchange of looks. This time, it was Emma who answered.

"Charlotte hasn't shown up to school all morning. We don't know why, but we were starting to speculate it may have to do with some plot she's cooking up."

Understanding dawned in Ash's eyes.

"Well, I won't say she isn't plotting, but I don't think that's why she missed school."

Both Rikki and Zane tensed up. Ash raised his free hand and added, "If you read this, you'll see what I mean."

He handed the newspaper to Emma. She opened it on the page he had marked. Rikki and Cleo peeked over her shoulders so they also could read.

For the next half a minute or so, their eyes ran over the width of the page on their left several times. By the time they had reached the bottom of the page, their eyes had widened noticeably. Meanwhile, Zane and Lewis looked at them expectantly.

"So, what happened?" Lewis asked.

Ash glanced at the girls as if for permission. When they didn't stop him, he explained, "According to an article in that newspaper, Charlotte's mother lost all her money after her secretary stole it and hightailed it out of the country with it."

Both Zane's and Lewis' eyes widened in surprise. For a few moments, no one said anything. The only thing breaking the silence was the angry crooning of two pigeons fighting for a piece of bread a few benches away.

"Poor woman," Lewis said.

The girls looked at him with as much shock as if he had been referring to the likes of Adolf Hitler or Osama bin Laden. Lewis took a step back in startle and raised his hands.

"I only said poor woman. Whatever Charlotte did to you or me, her mother didn't do anything of the sort."

The girls softened at the explanation. Cleo in particular turned her eyes down, with an ashamed, almost guilty look, as if recalling something she had done that she wasn't proud of. But Emma, although somber-looking, pointed out, "Let's look on the bright side. Now Charlotte may be too distracted to plot against us."

"Someone like her?" Rikki countered. "I don't think so. If she wants to plot, she'll do so even if she needs to beg for money on the street."

Emma turned to Rikki as if to reply. Cleo looked up and cut in before the other two could start an argument.

"What she'll do doesn't matter. What matters is what we do." Cleo paused to see if someone would interrupt, and then turned to Lewis, "You suggested we talk to her, Lewis. How do we decide who goes?"

Lewis put his hands behind his back, one clasping the back of the other. After a nervous gulp, he replied.

"I don't mind going, But I'd be lying if I said I look forward to it."

No one seemed relieved at Lewis offering himself for the job. But no one volunteered to take his turn either.

"Does anyone else want to?"

The other five exchanged looks among themselves. Then Cleo asked, "Are you sure you don't mind, Lewis?"

"I told you; I'm not thrilled about it, but I can take one for the team."

"When are you going?" Ash asked.

Lewis thought for a moment. "At least a few days from now. Maybe longer. To give time for her shock to fade and all that."

Yet again, no one seemed too happy at Lewis' suggestion, but no one argued against it either. However, Rikki pointed out, "In the meantime we should come up with something to do in case diplomacy fails. Just in case."

Lewis and Ash frowned at her tone, as if thinking her 'just in case' meant more 'for when she strikes', but like Lewis' decision, it went without response.

"But what?" Emma asked. "We don't know anything about other ways to deal with mermaids."

"We could ask the old man for help." Zane suggested.

"We can't," Lewis replied. When the others' surprised looks turned on him, he added, "I already talked to Max. He said he wouldn't stand against Gracie's granddaughter. He wouldn't tell her anything else either, but he also won't be responsible for her getting hurt."

Both Rikki and Zane snorted.

"That's nice of him," Zane deadpanned. "Especially after it was his big mouth that got the girls into this mess."

Lewis narrowed his eyes. "Whoever heard you would think you never spoke too much yourself, Zane."

Zane glared at the blond boy. Then Ash spoke up before things could escalate.

"I looked through my grandmother's stuff, but I didn't find anything that could help us. We'll really have to look for answers somewhere else."

Once again, all those listening to the answer turned disappointed gazes at who spoke. This time, however, Emma's eyes widened as if she had remembered something. she glanced at her watch, and then said, "And speaking of going, we should be getting back, if we don't want to cut it close for our next classes."

Rikki scowled at the reminder of school, but this time it only lasted a second before she smiled as Zane bumped shoulders with her. The smile, however, was also brief, as she pointed out with a much more serious look, "We should still meet later. Just so we come to some actual decision on what do about Charlotte."

The others nodded in agreement.

"See you at the JuiceNet after school?" Ash asked.

"Sure," Emma replied. The others nodded.

After she and Ash exchanged a goodbye peck, the older boy walked away from the others as they made their way back to school.

* * *

Inhaling the soothing marine breeze that blew into her face, Charlotte stepped away from the easel supporting her newest painting. As she looked over the washi paper, her trained eyes picked out a few flawed spots to correct, but she still smiled at her latest artwork: a pigeon crashing downwards against a blue backdrop, feathers flying in all directions. The bird looked more than a bit like Gratton Bird, mostly thanks to its cat like eyes, huge forehead, and long thin feathers on the tips of its wings. And the fact it was crashing to the floor depicted what Charlotte wanted to do to him if she found him.

She didn't want to actually kill him - even though he was a bastard, the thought made her stomach churn - but she wouldn't mind roughing him up if she could do so without getting caught. The only thing stopping her was that she'd go to prison herself if she got caught. That couldn't happen. Hiding after an unexpected transformation was difficult enough when she was free. Doing it locked in a cell 24/7 would be impossible.

But even if she was still a normal human, she'd find the idea of ending up there terrifying. Even being at a station as a witness could be unnerving, as she had found out only hours before.

A particularly loud wave broke onto the beach, just like the memory of the time she spent at the police station. Spending hours there because of about Gratton Bird (which wasn't even the bastard's real name) had made her want to slam her head on the wall, all the more so because for her much of that time consisted of waiting and pointless questions.

While Charlotte got a rather brief interrogation, she still got asked so much trivial stuff she had almost snapped at her interrogator, a middle-aged man with hawk-like eyes. She couldn't imagine what it had been like for her mother, whose interrogation lasted at least three times longer and was given by a guy who looked capable of breaking her in half with his bare hands. Her only consolation was that, thanks to her Aunt Nicole, things would move faster for them.

All the same, Charlotte couldn't wait to get out of there, and even now, after having lunch and shedding her frustrations on her painting, remnants of tension clung to her. All because of a scumbag who embezzled her mother.

 _Bastard._ Charlotte thought yet again as she looked at the canvas and pictured the real thing in place of the bird. _If you were here…_

Her fist clenched in anger. The water vial where she dipped her brush started to bubble.

Charlotte loosened her fist and willed her temper down. She couldn't lose her cool like that. Her mother had already gotten suspicious over the pool, and if incidents with her powers became too recurring, her mother would learn the truth. And her mother already had enough on her plate; Charlotte wanted to spare her at least one thing. Besides, she was out of water to put in that vial.

Just like soon, she'd be out of ink and brushes and washi paper. With them having to save up, there was no way she could continue painting as a hobby, at least as much as she was used to.

Her eyes turned back to one of the flawed spots she had picked out: a streak on the pigeon's left wing that was too light.

Charlotte raised her brush and dipped it in the paint. She might have to stop painting soon, but as long as she could do so, she'd make sure her works were well done.

* * *

Hours later, as the sun sank below the horizon, Charlotte put up a new sheet of washi paper. The struck bird's painting was as close to perfection as she could put it. Time to paint something else. And the orange, purple, and yellow streaks spreading across the horizon were the perfect inspiration.

Smiling at the sight, Charlotte dipped the now clean brush into the ink and raised it to the paper.

A polite cough broke through her thoughts the moment before she touched the paper. Charlotte set the brush down and turned around.

Max stood before her, in one of his usual flower-printed shirts, khaki trousers and hiking shoes, with the added touch of a jacket.

Charlotte's heart shrank to a tenth of its size. She hadn't seen Max since the day she had begged and wheedled the moon pool's secret out of him. And since then, he had probably heard all sorts of less than flattering things about her from Cleo and Lewis, like how she had broken Cleo's spirit so much she'd basically swum into the middle of a school of sharks so they'd eat her.

The urge to just turn away and bolt to the sea invaded her, but far too many of her belongings were here for her to turn her back on them. Besides, she was no five year old caught after breaking a knickknack. She could face the music.

"Hello, Charlotte," Max greeted her, his voice as calm as when he'd told her about Mako Island.

Charlotte barely managed to repress an utterly baffled expression. Had Max somehow not heard about what she did, in spite of her greatest fears? Or was he just that forgiving a person?

"Hi," she murmured.

Max took a few steps closer. "Can I talk to you for a second? Or is your inspiration too imminent to repress?"

"You can talk." While inspiration was indeed imminent, she owed him a conversation if he wanted to have it. It was the least she could do after manipulating him into spilling the beans about her grandmother and her friends.

"I heard about what happened to your mother," Max's face softened further. "I'm really sorry."

Charlotte's heart recovered some of its size, but at the same time it sank in her chest. Perhaps that was why Max was being so nice.

"Thanks," Charlotte mumbled. She didn't know what else to say.

"Do you want to talk about it?"

In spite of herself, Charlotte mustered a chuckle. "I'd better not. You wouldn't like to hear what I have to say."

The corners of Max's lips, visible even through his sailor's beard, curled upwards in a smile. "I take it you wouldn't be very pleasant to the man who stole your mother's money if you could get your hands on him."

"Can you really blame me for it?"

For the first time since they had met, Max's expression hardened into a stern look.

"I can see where you're coming from," he replied, his voice lower and more severe than she had thought it capable of. "But two wrongs don't make a right."

"Are we still talking about that embezzler?" The words got out of Charlotte's mouth before she could stop them.

She almost put her hands to her lips after she uttered them, but Max didn't seem any angrier. In fact, his expression seemed a tad less stern than before.

"We can still be," he replied. "Though I do know about the other recent event in your life."

So Cleo and her two sidekicks must have gone to Max already then, if they hadn't sent Lewis as an errand boy. Max knew she had gotten her tail back. Shame pricked at her. After all, she had only ever gotten it in the first place because she had manipulated him.

"I couldn't let it go without one last attempt to get it back," she said, her voice a subdued murmur. "I liked - like it - far too much."

"I understand," Max replied, a sad smile on his face. "Though let me tell you, you don't take after your grandmother in that respect."

Realization struck her like a slap. Max hadn't just found out she had gotten her tail back, he had found out her grandmother had lied to him. Up until she had gotten her tail back, Max had thought that the full moon that had taken her powers really did so permanently, with absolutely no chance of them returning. Yet, Charlotte had unwittingly destroyed fifty years' worth of a belief by getting her tail back.

"I'm sorry," Charlotte offered, a wave of sympathy going out to him. "I have no idea why my grandmother lied to you."

"She must have decided she couldn't live with a tail again," Max suggested, the same sad look on his face.

Probably. But, now that Charlotte thought of it, maybe her grandmother hadn't known how to live without it either. Given that she had died at fifty-five, and that she was apparently healthy beforehand, perhaps the loss of her tail had gradually worn her down over the years until it claimed her. From what Charlotte knew, the same was true of Louise and Julia, who had both died at sixty-six; hardly children, but noticeably less than the average life expectancy these days.

Max's sadness finally faded. A wave of sympathy for him surged out of her. Even though they hadn't spent much time together, Charlotte had known for a fact that he had loved her grandmother. It must have been painful to know she had lied to him.

But then again, Cleo and the others probably had already comforted him about that, and taken the chance to pull some more secrets out of him.

Horror invaded her at the thought. She knew that her grandmother's two friends, Louise and Julia, also had lost their tails, but unlike her grandmother, they had lost them through some other method. Could Max know it? Could he actually have shared it with the others already?

A colder gust of wind blew through the beach in tune with her thoughts, ruffling the grass in the dunes.

Her fears must have been obvious, because Max's expression softened even further.

"Don't worry, I wouldn't tell them anything about how to take your tail away again," he said. "Even if I knew of such a way to begin with." His expression hardened a touch. "But I won't tell you anything else either. Not after what you did to them."

Charlotte's heart sank again. Apparently, Max had heard about her misdeeds after all, and hadn't brushed them off, even if he wasn't holding them above her head per se.

"They started it," she mumbled.

"What did I just say?" Max asked, his eyes narrowed again, as if Charlotte was his actual granddaughter and he was scolding her after catching her in the wrong.

 _Two wrongs don't make a right._ She inwardly repeated. She didn't believe things were exactly that simple, and she still planned to teach the girls a lesson on the first chance she got, but she could see where Max was coming from. And she didn't want to argue with him right now.

"If you see them again, you can tell them to keep their scales on. The way things are right now, I don't have time for anything other than trying to help my Mum cope with this."

Max's gaze pierced her like a giant stiletto, but the next instant it softened and he asked, "Should I leave you to it then?"

He gestured toward the blank washi paper, and Charlotte saw what he was getting at.

"This is nothing special. I'm just painting. That's all there is to it. Painting helps me."

Max nodded. "I see. But if you ever change your mind, I'm sure you'll do very well."

"I won't," Charlotte stated. "My paintings are mine."

She'd had lost a few, and had been forced to throw away others after they got ruined, but she still had the bulk of the paintings she had made since she had first started Japanese brush painting, three years ago. Some of those may not be the best, but she was proud of them and wouldn't part with them even if she was paid.

"Good luck with them nevertheless," Max replied. "And good luck with everything else also."

He waited as if to see whether she would say anything else. When she didn't, he said, "Have a good evening."

Charlotte mustered a small smile. "You too, Max."

He nodded at her again, and then walked away.

* * *

After Max vanished behind the dunes, Charlotte turned back to the blank paper and the scenery before her. Most of the yellow and orange in the sky had faded, replaced by vibrant purple streaks. Still, this picture would also look lovely on paper. It might even sell for something, if she decided to do it.

But she wouldn't do it. And she wouldn't give away or even sell any of them. Her paintings were hers.

 _Isn't that kind of what you thought about Lewis?_ A voice at the back of her head reminded her. _And look at how that turned out._

Charlotte pursed her lips and gulped as if that would shush the voice. But it had a point. She had done quite a lot of things wrong. That party she had readied for Lewis where she hadn't even bothered to find out what he liked or to invite any of his actual friends hadn't been her best moment; not to mention that she hadn't exactly been able to invite any actual friends of hers either. And perhaps she had been a bit too forceful in trying to keep Lewis away from Cleo and those two stupid blondes.

When she tackled that issue again, she'd have to be a bit smarter.

 _Not like I'll do it anytime soon._ She thought as she applied the first stroke of ink to the paper. _With finding out to help my mother, I won't have time for anything else._

 _That by itself isn't a problem._ Charlotte thought as she dipped the brush in ink once more.

She knew she could help her mother by getting a job. But unlike Emma or especially Cleo, she wasn't dumb enough to work a job bound to get her wet and risk her secret. That alone gave her less options than most. And she couldn't work a full time job either; her mother had expressly told her she didn't want her grades failing, and Charlotte wanted to spare her that concern. And she didn't really have a resumé either, as she had never worked a job before. People these days didn't really give chances to anyone. She might end up knocking on a hundred doors before anyone even listened to her, much less accepted her.

And in the meantime, who knew what financial state she and her mother would end up in.

 _You wouldn't have that problem if you followed Max's suggestion and sold your paintings._

Charlotte let the brush hang in midair. There might be a point to those words, but she wouldn't do that. Her paintings were her pride and joy.

 _But can't you really part with just a few? Don't you think your mother needs the money more than you need to have the paintings gathering dust?_

Charlotte frowned. She didn't want to part with any of her paintings. They were her creations. She had invested hours in each and every of them. They were special. But the voice was right. There was no way how much money they had saved up, how fast it would be spent, or when her mother would find her next job. Given that her mother was forty-three, that could take quite a while, and any job she found could be badly paid. Her mother would need the money more than Charlotte needed to keep all those paintings.

Charlotte looked past the paper into the sea. The water mirrored the purple streaks in the sky, like a huge tapestry of abstract art. Beauty might be in the eye of the beholder, but Charlotte's was showing her a lot of it. And underwater it would be even more beautiful. The treasure of any artist.

 _Treasure!_ Charlotte thought as if a camera's light bulb had flashed in her mind. _There are plenty of sunken treasures! If I find one, mother and I will be set for life!_

And not only treasures. There were corals, pearls… if she thought hard enough, the sea was more valuable than a goldmine. All she had to do was get some of those things and that would be it.

 _And how would you explain your mother how you managed to get those things?_

Charlotte's heart dropped again, as her expression. True. The trade of just about everything that could be found in the sea ranged from highly regulated to illegal, and if Charlotte was caught trying to sell any of those things, she'd go to jail - which again, she couldn't as a mermaid. Besides, she didn't want to unwittingly contribute to some kind of nature disaster, no matter how small. If she was a mermaid who spent most of her time in the sea, she might as well take proper care of the place.

As for a treasure, how would she explain that either? For all she knew, removing it could be illegal as well, and even if it wasn't, she hadn't been exactly an expert swim or diver before being a mermaid. She had been able to swim well enough, but nothing like what would be needed to be able to scuba dive, which she hadn't been interested in either. Her mother would get too suspicious if she showed up with a treasure.

 _It looks like the paintings really are my only option._

Charlotte let out a deep sigh. It seemed the battle was lost. But regarding this matter, she could be a graceful loser. At least selling some of her paintings would be easy enough. Her aunt could help her get the paperwork she would need to be able to legally sell them at some stand. Not to mention that these days it was possible to sell such things online, anyway. If she sold them at both places, she'd have a higher chance of selling more, and thus making more money.

The breeze quickened a bit as if to snap her out of her thoughts. Charlotte refocused on the setting, and noticed that the sun was already even farther below the horizon. If she waited much longer, she wouldn't have anything to paint but a black stain specked in white, and that wasn't what she wanted to capture.

Charlotte took a resolute breath, and then again put the brush to the paper. The light kept decreasing around her. But if she was lucky, her decision to sell her paintings would bring some of it back into hers and her mother's lives.

* * *

 **So, another chapter has gone by. I know the girls keep being 'unduly aggressive' but again, remember they still have no reason to think Charlotte has 'improved' so to speak.**

 **And I know Charlotte hasn't improved that much herself either, but remember it's only been two days since she regained her tail. It takes longer than that to undergo significant changes.**

 **Until next chapter. Again, I'll try my best to take less time with it.**


End file.
